The Boston Bruins scored twice late in the third period to swing the balance in their favor in a 4-3 victory against the Florida Panthers on Tuesday in a duel at the top.
Trailing by one, Boston scored twice in a span of 2:01 to turn things around.
Before the game, the two teams were tied atop the Atlantic Division with 97 points each. The meeting was marked by robustness with numerous scrums after stoppage time. The two belligerents totaled 36 penalty minutes.
Pavel Zacha’s 18th of the season made the difference for the Bruins, when he deflected a David Pastrnak pass past Sergei Bobrovsky.
Pastrnak completed his evening with a goal, his 45th, and an assist to reach the milestone of 100 points this season. He now has 101 on the clock. He thus became the fifth player in Bruins history to record two consecutive seasons with at least one hundred points. Bobby Orr is the leader in this category in Boston having achieved the feat in six consecutive seasons.
Before Zacha’s goal, Trent Frederic had tied the game on a power play.
Charlie McAvoy also scored for the Bruins to reach the ten-goal plateau for the second time in his career.
Carter Verhaeghe’s 33rd goal of the season gave the Panthers the lead. Sam Reinhart continued his excellent work with his 51st goal. Evan Rodrigues was the author of the other.
Florida lost for the fifth time in its last six games, going 1-4-1 since losing star defenseman Aaron Ekblad to a lower-body injury on March 9.
Jeremy Swayman and Bobrovsky each faced 21 shots in front of their respective cages.
Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov returned to action after a five-game absence due to a lower body injury. He got an assist on Rodrigues’ goal, just 27 seconds into the first period.
Penguins spoil Guentzel’s return to Pittsburgh
Sidney Crosby had a goal and an assist as the Penguins spoiled Jake Guentzel’s return to Pittsburgh with a 4-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Penguins scored two goals on five shots in the second period.
Bryan Rust scored his 23rd goal of the season and his seventh in 10 games. Jesse Puljujarvi scored his third goal of the campaign. Drew O’Connor and Crosby scored into an empty net late in the third period.
Crosby scored his 35th goal of the season. He also became the first active player, and the 14th in NHL history, to record at least 15 seasons of 40 assists.
Alex Nedeljkovic, a second-round pick of the Hurricanes in the 2014 draft, stopped 38 shots in the victory.
Dmitry Orlov scored the Hurricanes’ goal and goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov stopped 18 pucks.
Guentzel, acquired by the Hurricanes on March 7, took six shots and finished the game with 21:06 of ice time. He scored 466 points in 503 games with the Penguins, from 2016 to 2024. He won the Stanley Cup with the team in 2017.
